Why do SMB owners want more calls as a result of SEO, but don't answer 62% of them?
-
Working mostly with SMBs for 8 years now, we have gradually developed the notion that small business owners are hard to reach by phone. Our Customer Service agents spend hours unsuccessfully trying to reach business owners. If a potential customer calls the business, they'll have to face the same outcome. This means missed opportunities for both parties. Needless to say, one of the most important KPIs in local SEO is the number of generated phone calls...but no one's there to answer.
We wanted to dig deeper into the matter, so we did a small study with 85 businesses. Results show that:
- 37.8% of calls are answered by a person.
- 37.8% of calls are answered by an answering machine, where no actual conversation (nor conversion) is possible, so we treat these calls as unanswered.
- 24.3% of calls are unanswered.
We also gathered a list of possible solutions to the problem, but what we really need to know is WHY do business owners neglect such an important part of their business? And what resolutions can you think of?
-
Okay, thanks for that.
-
Thanks, Christy! Sorry if we caused any trouble.
-
Sorry about that. I understand it has already been moved to the right section by another user.
The article was submitted to YouMoz before it was published but unfortunately it was rejected. However, we still wanted to discuss the issue with other professionals, so we started this thread.
Do you think we should add a short list of the possible solutions now that the link to the full article is gone?
-
We are totally aware of that, thanks.
-
Hi there! I have removed the link in your original post, and left it published here in the forum as a discussion question. For details, please refer to the email I just sent you.
Christy
-
This is Q&A, not a signpost for articles.
It looks pretty interesting. Why don't you write it up and submit it to YouMoz.
-
Link here is nofollow FYI.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is using meta refresh as a redirect method bad for our SEO?
Our CMS creates Call-To-Action buttons that use a meta refresh to redirect and MOZ stops it's crawl. The MOZ crawler hits these redirects and is unable to pass to the desired URL and so reports issues. So could this be happening to other crawlers or will most indexing be unaffected by this method? Essentially, is using meta refresh as a redirect method bad for our SEO?
Local SEO | | BLUEvennMOZ0 -
Community Discussion: Miriam's 2017 Local SEO Predictions ... And Yours?
I want to start this thread by thanking everyone in our community who has started and contributed to great threads this past year. You guys are an inspiration! I want to offer up a few predictions for the Local SEO industry in 2017 and ask you to contribute your own: Attribution will be big in 2017. Google will roll out a more thorough set of attributes in the GMB dashboard as we move forward through the new year. We'll see further rollout out of paid packs in service industries in which Google can play the middle man role. Free-packs won't be gone by the end of the year, but there will be fewer of them. Even SMB local businesses will have to start to tackle the ramifications of voice search. Local SEO will continue to merge with traditional, offline marketing. Local business websites will still matter, but Google will continue to do all it can to keep users within layers of its own local product, and some people will find this maze a bit bewildering. Reviews will finally be recognized as an integral facet of citations, rather than as something separate from them. Now, please, look into your own crystal ball and share your predictions with the community. What are your predictions for Local SEO in 2017? I'd love to know. And, while I'm at it, please let me wish each of you a busy and profitable new year in our exciting industry!
Local SEO | | MiriamEllis4 -
Community Discussion: When The 'Coupon Drawer' Is More Influential Than Your Best Friend ...
Howdy To Our Super Community! When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by ladies who spent hours combing through newspapers and mailers, clipping coupons to put in a coupon drawer for future shopping excursions. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to in order to save a a few bucks, especially given that I grew up in an era that still boasted a pretty stable middle class, but, it turns out, those ladies of yore were really onto something. A recent survey by Bazaarvoice and CMO Council found that coupons and discounts drive way more return/loyalty business amongst modern shoppers than any other factor, including recommendations from family and friends and paid advertising. Another survey by ROTH and Research Now discovered that 70% of millennial moms sought and downloaded mobile coupons while doing their shopping chores. There are a couple of facets of these findings that should interest any e-commerce business or local retailer. We've learned from a variety of studies that it can cost up to 7x more to earn a new customer than to retain an existing one, making loyalty programs smart business. Meanwhile, publications like the Wall Street Journal have made it clear that, in the U.S., the middle class is no longer the majority. These two factors seem to lend themselves to an important discussion for our community here at Moz, and in the marketing world at large. What is driving 70% of young mothers to use mobile coupons, as per the above study? Is it tight budgets, the love of a deal, pride in outsmarting 'the system' with a little extra effort? Is your company using coupons? Which ones have you seen convert most highly? Is there some element to them you've discovered to be a real winner? Interestingly, price is repeatedly cited as a minor factor in customer complaints, and yet, I've personally seen discounts/sales drive business like mad in both e-commerce and retail settings. Just how powerful is the love a deal? I would love it if you'd contribute your coupon/discount savvy to a discussion here, to help our community better latch onto this massively powerful influence. What are your thoughts and first-hand experiences?
Local SEO | | MiriamEllis2 -
Local SEO Mastermind Group?
Howdy Folks - I run a small (but growing!) SEO agency in Tennessee. I serve, primarily, local service businesses with Organic SEO and website development. I'm a completely self taught SEO and had an average client rank last year of just over position 2. I have long been dedicated to running my own SEO experiments to try to stay on top of what is working. With the constant changes to SEO, and the growing agency, I find I don't have the time to run all of the SEO experiments that I'd like to ensure that our packages are still giving the best value to our clients. I'm looking to see if 1 - 4 individuals, also running local SEO agencies, would like to form a sort of "mastermind group". Share ideas, successes and failures on a level that wouldn't be practical in a forum setting. I'm happy to share what has been working for my clients and would welcome a fresh set of eyes to see what we're missing. **Discussions like: ** Link Acquisition Scaling Staff, Content Creation and Systems Scaling Social Media Outreach Local Outreach Successes - Email Templates White/Black Hat SEO Techniques If you think it would be a good fit. Please PM me or comment. Thanks!
Local SEO | | CRO_first1 -
Is using emoji's in meta descriptions a good or bad idea ? - I haven't seen it used much hence my query
Hello Mozzers, We need to redo some of our meta descriptions as our CTR's are not to good. I've noticed one of my competitors using emoji's which I personally think looks pretty good. They are using the Phone icon and ticks - as calls to action etc However, I can't see hardly anyone else using them on general serps ...so I am wondering , is it a bad idea ? thanks Pete
Local SEO | | PeteC120 -
What happens with SEO when a site is served via CloudFlare CDN?
Hello, With regards to hosting, it is my understanding that one of the search engine ranking factors for a particular geographic location (city/country) is where a site is hosted physically geographically. For example, if a site was developed for New York users primarily AND it was hosted on a server physically located within New York (IP address) then it would rank better in New York ... that is, given all other SEO ranking factors were equal? Is this true? My worry is that once a site is served via CloudFlare via their 64 global cached locations, then do the search engines effectively lose all context as to its origin hosting and therefore hosting in New York (in the example above) would have no different effect than if the site was hosted on Mars (after the site had been cached, that is). Many thanks,
Local SEO | | uworlds
Mark 🙂0 -
Does having /search/ in your URLs for searches within your site hamper these URLs from coming up on Google SERP's?
We are an aggregate site for a particular category and have our own internal search wherein visitors can search for local references to services that they are looking for. We use SOLR search and our results page for the "Tag123" search would look like www.mywebsite.com/city/search/tag123 For some reason, we see that these pages are all indexed on Google but they do not come up on SERPs appropriately! The content is unique and we also have appropriate title and description tags on these pages.
Local SEO | | mycity4kids0 -
Landing Page vs Call Tracking
It is important for this particular client to maintain a single phone number for brand recognition.That being said; the client also utilizes radio advertising on occasion to announce new products or special promotions. I would like to track response to radio campaigns without call-tracking numbers. I am considering setting-up a separate easy-to-remember domain (the primary domain is quite lengthy) to use as a landing page for a new service the client has launched. I have created a topically relevant page for the new service on the client's primary domain and have achieved excellent organic placement. What might be the best approach to capture response to radio advertising and track PPC conversion metrics? 301 the landing page/domain to the relevant page on the primary domain OR use the separate landing page/domain as a lead capture page with a simple form and option to click-through to the primary domain? As always, I am looking-forward to your helpful suggestions 🙂
Local SEO | | SCW0